“You wouldn’t dare touch that boat!” Don gasped.
“No? You just watch and see. Come along, Frank. This young man wants to be alone to think, I can see that. Pretty soon he’ll want something to eat, too, but he won’t get it. Maybe then he’ll be able to listen to reason.”
Don smiled coolly. “They say the emptier your stomach is, the clearer you can think. I think you are both a fine pair of scoundrels now, so I don’t know what I’ll think you are when I get hungry!”
“Be careful of that tongue of yours, young man!” snapped Benito.
“As long as I won’t be able to use it for eating, I’ve got to use it for something,” Don retorted.
“The healthiest thing for you to do would be to keep it quiet,” the man warned as they left the room, taking Don’s wallet with them.
“Well, here’s a pretty mess!” thought Don, as soon as he was left alone. “I’m not a bit afraid as far as my own safety goes, but I don’t want those fellows to get hold of the Lassie. I’ve got to get out of here.”
He now went to work in deadly earnest to seek a difficult job’s solution. A few minutes’ work on the two doors with his pocket knife showed him that all hope in that direction was at an end. Then he once more examined the boarded windows, to find that it would take him hours to remove one board. That would do only as a last resort. From the windows he walked around the darkened room, examining walls and floor.
Near one of the windows he found a straight, pointed iron rod which was screwed to the wall. He decided that it had formerly held a bird cage, and as it was loosely held in place he soon pulled it out. It would act as a lever or some kind of a tool, and he decided to keep it to use. If he found that he was to be kept a prisoner for a long time this weapon might come in handy as a lever for prying loose the window boards. Meanwhile, he continued to roam around.
The men and the old woman had an appetizing meal in the next room, for he could still smell the bacon, and he heard them sit down and talk. He decided that he was to be kept next to the kitchen purposely, so that each meal might undermine his resolution as some particular smell of cooking food assailed him.